If you're longing for the next great Android superphone, the time is now. Samsung just revealed that the global variant of the Galaxy S III --- which has a beastly quad-core Exynos processor within -- will begin shipping this week in 28 countries around the globe. By July, that will expand to 145 countries and will touch some 296 carriers. Presumably, the U.S. will be in there as well; there have been hints that all four major U.S. carriers will see their own version of the GSIII, but there's still no "official" word on that just yet.

As for those initial 28 nations? They'll be mostly in Europe and the Middle East, including Great Britain and Germany, and it'll ship with Android 4.0. Of course, with Google I/O less than a month away, a v5.0 update may be in the cards before America gets its version(s). So far, carriers have been pretty vigorous in pushing the GSIII, with some estimates expecting the phone to eventually outsell the GSII, which has moved around 20 million units worldwide thus far.

Also, it remains to be seen if S Voice, a primary feature on the GSIII, will do a decent job rivaling Siri on the iPhone 4S. As for pricing? A 16GB model should sell for around $300 on subsidized carrier models with a new contract. Decisions, decisions...